French-Taiwanese TV series explores art and the brain

CREATIVE THOUGHT:The scientific TV series looks into the effect of music and dance on the brains of people with Huntington’s disease

Staff writer, with CNA

A scientific television series that explores the workings of artists’ brains while they perform will be premiered later this month, the first in a series of joint film projects between Taiwan and France.

The first episode of the series will feature a real-time presentation of the brain activity of Huang Chih-chun (黃誌群), the musical director of Taiwan’s U-Theatre group (優人神鼓), while he performs.

Dancers from the Dutch contemporary dance troupe Emio Greco | PC are also featured in the series.

The production team, formed of personnel from Taiwan and France, combine science with various artistic groups from Taipei, China’s Dunhuang region, Paris, London, Amsterdam and Brussels.

The project also looks at the brains of patients with Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that is hereditary and currently incurable.

The disease causes progressive degeneration of cells in the brain, slowly impairing the sufferer’s ability to walk, think, talk and reason.

For the production, dancers and doctors from Paris held dance classes for patients with the disease and explored their brain waves when exposed to music and dance.

James Hsiung (熊杰), dean of Shih Hsin University’s College of Journalism and Communications, and producer of the series, said he is negotiating with a Canadian TV channel to have the series broadcast there in the hope of raising the profile of Taiwan’s scientific research and arts.

The series will be premiered on March 17 on Taipei-based Chinese Television System.